06-13-2008, 11:20 AM | #1 |
GuteBook/Mobi2IMP Creator
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Extracting markups (annotations and highlites) from your ebook!
Mobileread member "vinicius0881" recently asked me to further explore the possibility of retrieving some highlights made on the ebookwise ETI-2 (that he had just ordered and was 'hoping' to be able to do this!).
I was intrigued by his request as I had always wanted to know if this could be done, but never had any reason to pursue this further. Thanks for his request, as this turned out to be relatively easy to do i.e. retrieve all markups/annotations (drawing/scribbles and highlites) from the external storage card. (SmartMedia for EBW 1150 or CompactFlash for REB 1200). On the iLiad this feature is handled by a Scribble Merger. On the 1150/1200, it must be done manually (for now)! What is required: 1. External card reader i.e. SM card reader for 1150 or CF card reader for 1200. As a test, I used a REB 1200 .imp file I had converted from .prc (Mobipocket - Orwell Animal Farm_1200.imp) and marked up. On the first page, I drew/scribbled, on page two, I only used highlights (one continuous one and nine individual word ones) and lastly on page three, I drew (not too well!) some annotations. These markups were printed out (first 4 pages only) to a pdf file for easy transporting/printing. I also ran the before and after .imp through imp_dump.pl to see the differences and their output.txt are attached below. It turns out that the marked-up .imp has, 4 new filetypes in the .RES folder i.e BTok, Ano2, MRPs and Hlts. An additional file, BPos, records the page the ebook was on when it was closed!2. Determine the .RES name associated with your .imp. Many .imp files are renamed after being created to be more descriptive, however, the .RES directory name originally used must be known. You may wish to unimp.exe the .imp to see that directory name that is extracted or use a hex/binary editor to view the .imp and look for a name ending in .RES at the top. Once known, the .RES directory name will be the directory to retrieve from the external card. 3. After drawing/scribbling/highlighting the ebook on the ebookwise, turn off the unit. Remove the external card and place it in your PC card reader. EBW 1150 owners are advised to "cycle on-off" their ebook reader to avoid memory card corruption (see IMP for further details). 4. Navigate to the external card reader's drive letter and in the 'ebooks' directory therein, look for the .RES directory name determined in step 2 above. 5. Copy that .RES directory to your hard drive, where you want the newly marked-up .imp to be stored. 6. Using sbtest.exe, reimp that .RES directory by launching the 'sbtest.exe' program and navigating to the .RES directory stored on your hard drive in step 5. Double-click that .RES directory name and notice that the 'ReImp!' button is now activated. Click the 'ReImp!' button and your (markup) .imp will be created. 7. Now view your markup .imp in the PC imp viewer and (optionally) print it to a .pdf driver (like the free PrimoPDF from www.primopdf.com). FYI, the page one and page three annotations are stored in PICT image format as .png of size 158x51 and 105x140 respectively whereas the page two highlites are stored as a start and stop position for each of the 10 highlights made. As of yet, the ebookwise's external card cannot be accessed by the PC when connected via the usb cable, otherwise this could be done from the PC if the external card would show up as a drive letter on the PC. Oh well, anybody have any insights here? Last edited by nrapallo; 06-15-2008 at 09:36 PM. Reason: added images of pages before & after markups |
06-15-2008, 09:48 AM | #2 |
zeldinha zippy zeldissima
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oh, brilliant !!! it always seemed idiotic that we should be able to write on our texts but that the notes were doomed to remain uselessly on the device, impossible to export or capture for use elsewhere. this is a brilliant utility which will definitely open up new worlds of uses for me !! thanks nick, you've done it again !! (groupie mode : on)
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06-15-2008, 10:55 AM | #3 |
GuteBook/Mobi2IMP Creator
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It turns out that the two annotations ('draw'ing-type markups) are NOT in PNG format, but an (internal) undocumented PICT image format. See below .zip file for the actual PICT image files. Anyone recognize this image format and able to view them?
The two .png images I saw, listed in the imp_dump.pl text output, were the ones in the ebook I extracted, namely, the 'Animal Farm cover' picture as well a 'mobileread logo' picture of size 105x140 and 158x51 respectively. Oh, well! Now I have to explore this new (old) PICT format to see if the annotations are an 'overlay' image (which I suspect) over the text. Extracting just those 'overlay' images may not be fruitful if no ebook text is there to reference it. I think, in the long-run, the printing to a .pdf file is a better solution than extracting the image! |
06-15-2008, 11:13 AM | #4 |
zeldinha zippy zeldissima
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i believe pict is the native mac image format, something like bmp on a pc. i could be wrong. they should be viewable on any computer though, and editable with any image-editing soft, if i'm not mistaken.
EDIT i tried to view the two images in your zip file. they launched the QuickTime Picture Viewer, which would seem confirm that they are supposed to be mac .pict files, however i got an error message both times : "Impossible d'afficher "PICT_pg3.pic" car aucun module d'importation graphique adéquat n'est disponible." "Impossible to display "PICT_pg3.pic" because no adequate graphic importation module is available." so perhaps they are in some kind of modified pict format, OR perhaps those 2 images were corrupted somewhere, OR perhaps you need a specific codex to see them. but i would look into mac pict files to see if there is any clue there. Last edited by zelda_pinwheel; 06-15-2008 at 11:20 AM. |
06-15-2008, 11:28 AM | #5 | |
GuteBook/Mobi2IMP Creator
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Quote:
However, I saw a comment here at mobileread made by scotty1024 that the original Softbook (aka REB 1200) ebook reader was to incorporate the Apple Macintosh OS, but Apple changed their mind about licencing it prior to shipping of the units. It will only be a matter of time before we are able to decode this PICT format. I'm just looking for an easy way (i.e. one that I don't have to do ) EDIT: Oops you came to the same conclusion as I was writing this. Last edited by nrapallo; 06-15-2008 at 11:30 AM. |
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06-15-2008, 11:42 AM | #6 |
Resident Curmudgeon
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I've stuck the thread for easier finding. Well done nrapallo.
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06-16-2008, 03:16 PM | #7 |
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highlites pointers
awesome nick, thanks for your efforts(as i've said a dozen times lol) i'm definitely in debt with you and daudi(with his work on the iliad)!
as the highlites part requires an additional processing to fetch the text stored as pointers, i'd ask you please to see sometime if they're numbered relative to the book's beggining or is the sequence reset dinamically according to a page start(taking account font size and such formatting options) would you? i'm keeping an eye in the mail tracking system... really can't wait to put my hands in my first display! (that's why i'm a bit lost :P ) |
06-16-2008, 04:07 PM | #8 | |
GuteBook/Mobi2IMP Creator
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Quote:
Last edited by nrapallo; 06-16-2008 at 04:53 PM. |
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06-17-2008, 03:02 AM | #9 |
space cadet
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There was another thread about getting a book file (not the annotation file) from a Rocket Pro (he was trying to recover a book not backed up). The Rocket Pro doesn't have an external memory card, and has ONLY a serial interface with the computer.
Any ideas for that situation? |
06-17-2008, 08:32 AM | #10 |
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oh, great! now i understood correctly! this way it's even easier for a program to scan this .pdf file and save the highlites to a new (text ?)file, right?
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06-17-2008, 09:43 AM | #11 | |
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Quote:
If you do want a text file with some markings where the start and stop highlites would be, then that would require extra coding to extract and merge them into the text file. How would you want the highlites to appear (be marked) in the text file, if this is what you are asking for above? |
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06-17-2008, 10:10 AM | #12 |
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lol sorry perhaps i didn't express myself correctly from what i saw on the .pdf file pg 2, the highlites are there, together with "non-highlit" text... so i was wondering if it would be easier to scan the whole document and extract just the highlites to somewhere else, without surrounding unimportant text. anyway i think i'll understand better the process when my display arrives!
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06-17-2008, 10:29 AM | #13 | |
GuteBook/Mobi2IMP Creator
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Quote:
Just use Adobe Acrobat Pro v7 on the .pdf to select the highlites area and 'Save Image As...' like this .bmp or 'Copy Image to Clipboard' and paste into Word like the files in the below .zip. Last edited by nrapallo; 06-17-2008 at 10:34 AM. |
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06-17-2008, 11:03 AM | #14 |
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yes! that's it, cut and paste!
MY ETI-2 ARRIVED!! i, for one, welcome my new eti-2 overlord!! Last edited by vinicius0881; 06-17-2008 at 02:07 PM. Reason: to announce my e-book displayer has just arrived |
06-17-2008, 11:23 PM | #15 | |
GuteBook/Mobi2IMP Creator
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Quote:
Now that you finally have your hands on it, how does it feel to own one? To learn more about your unit and the .imp format, try reading our mobileread wiki entires for IMP, EBookwise-1150 and eBook_Publisher for starters. If some things still make no sense, ask in the Fictionwise forum for help! |
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